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Forum:The Man in the High Castle TV Show
I just watched the pilot on Amazon. I now have adaptation envy (in fairness HT has less control over adaptations than he does over opening his works up to other authors). I've never read the book, but it is an excellent pilot. TR (talk) 00:54, January 17, 2015 (UTC) :I'll give it a look. I've never read the book either, but more and more I'm coming to believe that going into an adaptation cold is a good idea. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:05, January 17, 2015 (UTC) :I've read the book. Its okay, as it focuses on three people, a Jew living in Japanese Occupied California, a Japanese News Paper Editor also living in California and a woman living in what remains of the United States. I haven't seen the pilot yet, but the three plot lines never cross each other. There's an excellent brief summery of the world, which can be found on YouTube here, but in all honesty, its nothing too spectacular to write home about. The only interesting points of the book are the sections that examine life in a USA where fascism won over democracy, my favourite type of AH.Mr Nelg (talk) 02:38, January 17, 2015 (UTC) :I have a vague recollection of reading it years ago and enjoying it. Its one of those that I intend to reread but never get around to it. ML4E (talk) 19:39, January 17, 2015 (UTC) :One of my personal favorites. The most interesting aspect of the book is that there is an AH-within-the-AH, a fictional book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, by an author that one of the characters tries to locate as the Nazis are keen on assassinating him. It postulates that the Allies won WW II in that world, but that Allied victory is not quite our Allied victory and the Cold War that ensues is not quite our Cold War. As always, PKD plays with the question of "what is reality?" and the most intriguing postulate of the book for me is that "our" world is not necessarily the "real" world, or prime reality if you will. Looks like the TV show is focusing more on the action and less on the metaphysics, which is okay, but I am a little turned off that they changed The Grasshopper Lies Heavy ''from a book to a movie, making it a completely different medium experience and that the plot of ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is basically "our" Allied victory, thereby taking away the most interesting premise of the book. I'll give it a try, though. It should be noted that PKD tried several times to write a sequel to the novel but he found it difficult to deal with. He even said the world he created was way too depressing. Wonder what he'd say about the Draka world or even In the Presence of Mine Enemies. JudgeFisher (talk) 00:12, January 21, 2015 (UTC) :So I just watched it. I found the Nazified East Coast very disturbing. I've read books where we lost the war and are occupied, but this is only the second time I've ever seen it on screen; the first was in a latter-day Star Trek episode right before the franchise gave up the ghost (prior to Abrams taking over, anyway) and it was the worst attempt at AH I've ever seen. The world-building also was pretty soft core, so this is the first time my physical senses have seen that particular nightmare come to life. Seeing Germans walking our streets was bad enough, but every time I saw honest-to-God Americans with swastikas on their arms my fists clenched even as I knew there was nothing to do about it. On one level I felt a certain sympathy with the people of conquered countries who can't turn off the show and go back to real life; on a deeper level, of course, I realize I have no right to compare that to their ordeals. :The West Coast, now, seemed too optimistic. The Japanese are in charge and brook no argument, and their security forces are ruthless; but if you keep your head down it seems you can have some semblance of a decent life (well assuming a loved one doesn't drag you into events in which you'd rather not get involved). But I've read about the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March, and I've visited monuments in Seoul and Singapore, and I know that's not how it would have gone. Not at first, anyway; imperial policy may have softened eventually, but ten years or so is only a fraction of the time frame on which I can imagine that happening. ::I suspect there are a few Nanjing-esque incidents in North America in the background of this timeline, but, while the Japanese were absolutely racists and engaged in genocidal behaviors, to the best of my knowledge, they never quite said out loud "the world would be so much better if group were completely wiped out" the way that the Nazis did. (I could be wrong, but I know that even Koreans were allowed to study in Japan and advance in Japanese society. See, e.g. Shigenori Togo.) And there is the matter of logistics--conquerors have traditionally done better when they do allow their conquered populations to keep their head down and go about their business. (There seems to have been some of this in the Nazi areas as well.) So a sort of "settling down" as depicted in the show didn't quite bother me. Plus, at the end, we were reminded that however "placid" the Pacific States appeared, the Japanese police were ruthless when it came to keeping the population in line. TR (talk) 18:09, January 21, 2015 (UTC) :::The Japanese did go in for some ethnic cleansing here and there, but you're right, their racism wasn't a patch on Hitler's. (Whose was, though?) The massive resettlement that's apparent must have helped subdue the Pacific States; and yes, there's clearly an iron hand in that velvet glove. Offering your conquests some hope of a life that is not defined by never-ending abject misery is a good way to discourage rebellion, it's true. I also wonder if they might hope that, by behaving better than the Nazis, they can say to any malcontents "Look, if you inflict any damage to speak of on us, you'll just make it more likely that we get pushed out; and you'll like living under those assholes even less than you like living under us." Kind of what played out in the countries which had the misfortune to be stuck between Germany and the USSR in OTL. :::But while there were elements of all the above except (as far as I know) the last one in Japan's OTL conquests, the Japs really enjoyed lording it over the locals. It wouldn't take much to portray that realistically here: Juli has to speak Japanese to her instructor and the apothecary; people kowtow when they run into the police. Some kids walk around adapting Japanese fashions to remind us that our own culture is being displaced. You could put a sick sort of positive spin on it by having someone really excited that they have the opportunity to go study in Japan, while implying the other side of that coin, the fact that there are no worthwhile educational opportunities in America. Maybe a couple of whispers about some unfortunate girl they used to know who was taken as a comfort woman. It would still be better than life on the East Coast, but it would also do a better job of reminding us that this is still a really shitty world all around. Turtle Fan (talk) 05:08, January 22, 2015 (UTC) :Anyway. The plot is interesting. I had an awful experience with PKD some years ago, so I have no real interest in reading the book; but I do hope the show gets picked up. (What a cruel thing Amazon's doing, now that I think of it: inviting you to watch as many as thirteen cliffhangers, and you knowing full well that twelve of them will continue hanging forever.) Amazon sent me a link that I can use to vote for which of their pilots should get a full season. I'm planning to vote for this one. :Before I do I kind of want to check out Point of Honor. It's a Civil War drama, which I would prefer all else being equal. I don't hold out any great hope for it, though. The premise is "A prominent Virginia family makes the controversial decision to defend the South while freeing all their slaves." Assuming "the South" means the Confederacy (though ten percent of white soldiers born in the seceding states wore blue, as did one hundred percent of black soldiers born in same), I'm curious as to why they'd give a rat's ass about the Confederacy if they're getting out of the slaveholding business. I'm skeptical, but the show did catch my attention and I suppose I owe it one hour's worth of my time. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:47, January 21, 2015 (UTC) ::So last night I dreamed myself into the story. I was in a resistance cell, I knew someone was talking, I was becoming really paranoid, and I learned it was the kid who drove the truck (I forget his name, I'm afraid) just as it became too late. Turtle Fan (talk) 16:34, January 21, 2015 (UTC) :::Sounds more pleasant than a similar dream I had about 20 years ago, wherein several friends and I were part of a fairly violent resistance cell working against a fascist regime that had taken over the country. It was very vivid, and I watched several friends "die". The dream ended on a suicide mission that ended badly--we were all wiped out and the fascists ultimately prevailed. ::::Wow, that's a rough dream. I wouldn't say mine was more pleasant--or pleasant at all--but less unpleasant, sure. Mine wasn't very vivid, either; I don't remember much more than a pervasive sense of paranoia and figuring out that Joe Blake was the traitor just as it was too late--whatever "too late" means. Turtle Fan (talk) 05:08, January 22, 2015 (UTC) :::It was definitely more coherent than the dream wherein my middle school was taken over by a cult dedicated to the worship of Boris Karloff. TR (talk) 18:09, January 21, 2015 (UTC) ::::Huh, that's interesting. I've had some zany dreams like that over the years, rarely with such specificity. I guess the most coherent one like had 16-year-old me watching grizzly bears drive away in my first car. They looked completely human and were dressed like members of a street gang, but somehow I knew they were actually grizzlies. (That same dream, or maybe another one that same night that I also remembered, had me getting ready to marry one girl from school, stepping out for a moment, walking back in to find a completely different but equally attractive classmate, and deciding that, since no one else seemed to notice, I might as well just go for it.) Turtle Fan (talk) 05:08, January 22, 2015 (UTC) It's been picked up Amazon will begin airing it at the end of the year. While that's a good thing in and of itself, it occurs to me that there could be a side benefit: given the entertainment industries propensity for running ideas into the ground, Netflix or Hulu or some other entity could decide to jump on the AH bandwagon, and we may at long last see an adaptation of an HT work. I won't hold my breath, of course. TR (talk) 18:21, February 19, 2015 (UTC) :Ooh, hadn't thought of that. That would be interesting. :I thought the winner of their pilot cage match was something called Bosch. Glad I was wrong. Turtle Fan (talk) 16:08, February 22, 2015 (UTC)